grave surprise by charlaine harris

Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris

Grave Surprise is the second book in the Harper Connelly series from

Charlaine Harris. Harper is a woman with a bad past, the most obvious

event being the day she was struck by lightning, leaving her with a

myriad of small damages and the ability to find the dead. Unlike in

other urban fantasies Harper is one of, if not the, only person in the

world to have a psychic power. She and her brother, Tolliver who acts

as her manager, travel the states working cases where people, or their

bodies, are missing.

In Grave Surprise Harper has been hired to do a demonstration for a

college professor's class on psychics. Sure that he's called her there

to debunk her instead Harper names the occupants and cause of deaths

for a little graveyard with stunning accuracy, right down to finding a

new grave, a grave on top of an older grave. The newest addition the

the cemetery is an eleven year old girl that Harper herself was hired

to find a year ago.

The find is stunning enough for the Memphis PD, but the fact that

Harper already worked the girl's case, and that the parents moved from

the city where their daughter was abducted to Memphis, not far from

the graveyard, makes the local cops suspect Harper and her brother and

they suspect they've been set up.

Harris is a veteran mystery writer more popular for her Southern

Vampire series, but with the Harper Connelly books she's turned back

to her mystery roots creating a world that's a strange combination of

real and dark. The cover of Grave Surprise (first US mass market

edition) features a skulled jack-in-the-box popping out of an open

grave. It matches the feel of the book perfectly, implying that this

world inside should be bright and whimsical, but never quite makes it

out the dark shadows. Likewise Harper and her brother are both trying

to help people, and trying to shed the memories of an abusive past,

and instead seem to be trapped by subtle chains, like depression and

fears, into living dark lives.

This is the best book in the series so far, the plot is sneaky and

more compelling than the first, but just as well written and

unnerving. While Harris' other books might appeal to a more

romance-oriented crowd this series has the potential to draw in fans

who never thought they'd like a book like this, proving that Harris

and her work should not be dismissed as another in a line of trend